9 Nov

9 Nov - Hello Sailor. A nautical round-up, as the other day I met up with Sam & Charlie who are fortunate enough to spend most of their time messing around with their yachts.

Prior to this, my yachting knowledge was garnered from Duran Duran's 'Rio' video from around 24 years ago. So I knew that you should dress appropriately - satin pastel coloured suit, loafers, mascara, and floppy haircut. But, much to my chagrin I found that, yet again, the pop video cannot be relied upon for educational purposes. And so, with not one square jawed 'John Taylor-type' or bikini clad chick aboard we set sail for Koh Mak.

Although it's a slow ride I can now see why many people would love to be able to just hop in a boat, point it towards an island and leisurely cruise out onto the sea. Get a few people to share the cost, a boat & a skipper and have a day out with a difference. If you're interested in sailing get in touch with Deiter at Island View, Salakphet Bay. He's a German guy who first sailed to Koh Chang over 14 years ago and now owns a nice little marina in an ideal spot to use as a base for sailing in this area. He has several Ac rooms for rent at only 900 baht/night and there's a host of waterborne activities to keep you busy. If you get bored lounging on a beach all day this is a good place to head to. Gulf Charters now have their fleet based at Island View and can arrange sailing courses as well as skippered and bareboat charters.

Online tide tables . . .there aren't any tide tables online specifically for Koh Chang - that I can find - but you can get pretty good, free, 7-Day forecasts from a couple of sites. Buoyweather.com has tides, wave heights etc from a spot not far from Salakphet in the south-east of Koh Chang and the British Govt.'s Hydrographic Office, has an excellent service for yachties, 'Easy Tide' with a free 7-day sailing forecast from places around the world - select 'Koh Mak' for the nearest spot to Koh Chang.

Thai TV is reporting that shooting stars will be visible pretty much everywhere in the country on Nov 17th & 18th. Head to somewhere with no light pollution for the best view. Quiet spots on Koh Chang or outlying islands such as Koh Wai, Koh Mak etc should make for good vantage points.

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . you too can now learn how to 'Om' correctly (with the correct number of 'm's) at Baan Zen, Klong Prao. Frenchwoman, Joelle, runs Yoga classes and private sessions for novices who don't know their Asana from their Pranayama. Being from the 'If it looks painful, then it probably is' school of avoiding any form of exercise which involves too much flexibility, you probably won't see me at the classes. But for those of you looking for a relaxing way to start the day and or wind down in the evening, check out the small group sessions which are held on the deck of Joelle's waterfront house which is within easy walking distance of the Amari, VJ, Tropicana & Barali resorts. Other classes in Tui-Na Massage, Reiki, Thai Massage and something that involves being pummeled by bamboo sticks and is not dissimilar to torture techniques seen in 'Rambo 2', are all available, for more details take a look.

10 Sep

10 Sep Two photos in today's update. On the right is the sunset from a couple of days ago and at the bottom of the page the view from Long Beach, also taken a couple of days ago.

Had a fun 24 hours recently which started when an oil line broke on our pick-up and it ground to a halt on the unfinished road down to Wai Chek beach (which is now washed out so you cant drive to the beach anymore unless you're on a motorbike). Got a tow back OK, only to find that one of our guests was having a weird adverse effect to some prescription drugs. The general consensus amongst the amateur physicians that were on hand was that she looked like something out of Dawn of the Dead. So she had to be rushed of to hospital and spent the night there. Fortunately the car will be fixed soon for only a couple of thousand baht and the guest has made a quick recovery.

Jim & his yacht, "Remington" are currently down in Malaysia, off Tioman Island, and want to know if anyone fancies a trip up to the Perhentians and then back down to Tioman and past Singapore to Phuket, where he's due a re-fit - apparently the dodger and genoa are on the way out. (I don't have a clue what that means either.) For info see www.sail-remington.com

We've still got one room left for 14-20 January, other than that our place is already fully booked from mid-November to mid-February. So it looks like this coming high season will be busier on KC than last year. I'm getting a lot of emails from families looking for rooms/bungalows as many hotels say they limit the number of kids in a room to one - which isn't much good if you have 2 kids. If anyone has any recommendations for places, let me know and I'll pass them on when I answer emails

More boat stuff . . . A Danish icebreaker . . .(see if you can guess the name) . . . the 'Hans Christian Andersen', is Koh Chang bound, having set sail from Denmark in late August. There will be 15 members of staff on board catering to the needs of up to 40 guests who are looking for an experience rather than luxury travel, according to the report on Scandasia.com

Some folks working for a internet company based in Bangkok thought it would be a good idea if their new Koh Chang site had some content worth reading. So they simply cut & paste half of this site plus dozens of my posts from the Tripadvisor discussion board and claimed they'd written it. The stuff they ripped off has now been removed and I got a "I don't know how it could have happened' type of apology from someone pretending to be the boss. So, if you're looking for a hotel booking site please avoid kohchangonline.com. They also claim 7 years experience of living on Koh Chang which is nonsense and their parent site is on a blacklist of sites listed as being unauthorised agents for a major hotel in Bangkok. If you just want to book a hotel, there are lots of other sites to choose from.

18 Mar

18 Mar We had some free time a couple of days ago, so we went out on the boat. A couple of photos taken on Koh Rang, where we stopped off for lunch. We had this small bay with views of Koh mak, the island in the distance, to ourselves.

Gulf Charters - www.GulfChartersThailand.com are organising a 'Songkran Flotilla' over Thai New Year. A 5-day cruise around Koh Chan, Koh mak,Koh Kood and all islands in between.

Itinerary
12th - Get together at Gulf Charters Koh Chang Base at Salakpet on Koh Chang
13th - Overnight at Koh Mak, Dinner ashore at Koh Kham
14th - Overnight at Koh Kood, Dinner ashore at Captain Hook’s
15th - Overnight at Koh Kood, Dinner ashore at The Beach Natural Resort
16th - Overnight at Koh Wai or Koh Ngam
17th - Return to Koh Chang

Visit their website for prices, more details.

The big new resort in Bailan is now 70 percent complete and will have 96 rooms and suites. It'll be named 'Princess Resort Koh Chang' and will be Royal Princess Hotels & Resorts first island resort property. Expect it to be well run as Princess Resorts are a division of Dusit Thani Hotels, purveyors of 5-star luxury. Just don't expect a long sandy beach.

4 Feb

4 Feb - Call it becoming a fashion victim, call it the influence of western civilisation, call it a sad attempt to blend in with hip young backpackers . . . but I actually saw a local fisherman wearing fisherman's pants yesterday. What's wrong with 99 baht polyester football shorts?

Best Western, the traveling salesman's choice of expense account accommodation, will soon be opening 3 star resorts on Koh Chang and Koh Kood, according to recent reports.

A few months ago I mentioned that Jim and his 42' schooner 'Remington' were heading to KC to offer adventurous types liveaboard trips around the archipelago. Jim's now here, with his yacht, which can be seen moored off Lonely Beach. For info on charters and the boat in general see www.sail-remington.com

First it was 'The Times', then 'The Independent' and now 'The Observer' has printed a full page article on Koh Chang which, as with he two other articles, is little more than a thinly disguised advertorial for the Amari Resort and Kuoni holidays. Surely it's time for a few other hotels to get together an organise a press junket?

There are a few good lines in the article. A nice contradiction to begin with: "There is little resort-style development on Koh Chang . . . because it is a protected marine national park - although not protected from earth movers on every corner helping to throw up new hotels."

And proof, if it were needed that travel journos don't really have clue where they are when they're enjoying the freebies on offer from the likes of Amari & Kuoni Corp.: "A seven-night stay at the Amari Emerald Cove resort costs from £756.50 per person. This includes international flights with Thai Airways to Bangkok and onwards to Phuket and transfers to and from the resort" That's a hell of along transfer from Phuket to Koh Chang :-)

Fortunately the write up does a pretty good job of not going overboard on the tourist brochure bull that is usually associated with this type of write up.

San Miguel beer is now brewed in Thailand and San Mig Light and San Mig Pale Pilsner are available in V-Mart supermarket, Klong Prao for 55 baht per 640ml bottle. The latter tastes particularly good, it's very smooth and far superior to Thai beers in the simple fact that it's drinkable. The former has no taste but being a Light beer I guess that's the point. And, using that reasoning, it must be good too, although it still tastes like piss to me.

Samui's tourist arrivals from the UK were down 30% in January following the murder of a good looking young female visitor a month ago. Koh Chang's arrival figures were unaffected following the murder of an old bloke a month ago. The lesson from this is that if you're old or ugly, then no-one cares if you get murdered abroad. Unless it's a particularly bizarre death, 'Bob Thompson, 59, died after inadvertently swallowing a parrot fish whilst snorkelling off the paradise island of Koh Chang, Thailand.' -this stands a change of being considered newsworthy by sub-editors.